|
Date:
Sunday, August 13th, 2000
Competition:
eircom League, Premier Division
Venue:
Turner's Cross
 Result:
Cork City 1 - 0 St. Pat's
Half-time:
0-0
Kick-off:
2pm
Scorers:
Mark Herrick 63
City
team: Mooney;
Horgan, Delaney, Daly (capt), Napier; Cahill, Flanagan, Herrick, O'Brien;
Freyne, Morley. Subs:
Caulfield for Freyne, Moore for O'Brien.
Subs not used: Harrington, Cotter, O'Donoghue.
Report: by Bill
George, Turners Cross
LITTLE wonder that new manager Derek Mountfield’s smile lit
up the dressing-room at Turner’s Cross yesterday — a winning
start to a new career is always welcome, but a winning start against
arch rivals while playing badly is happiness indeed!
“I was disappointed with our first half performance,”
said Cork City’s new manager. “I don’t think we
got anywhere near what I expected, we spent more time passing to our
friends in the crowd than passing to red shirts on the pitch.”
His comment was not an exaggeration — Cork struggled despite
a lot of possession, principally because they had Patsy Freyne in
an unusual role up front as support player to Pat Morley, and also
because of St. Pats formation, which was heavily biased towards defence.
Pats had Packie Lynch playing very deep in midfield, almost as a third
centre back, and they sought to smother Cork with a concentration
of bodies in midfield while leaving Jamie Harris toil on his own up
front.
It was not pretty but it was effective, and almost paid a handsome
dividend when Lynch came forward to turn a header against the crossbar
following a corner, while Cork were unable to penetrate.
“I don’t think they played through us once,” said
St Pats manager Pat Dolan as he tried without success to hide his
disappointment. “The goal was opportunist and I thought Packie
was unlucky — that is a move we worked on in training.”
Dolan was not quite right, for Colin OŽBrien disco danced his way
through the defence in the second half before pulling a left foot
shot over when he seemed likely to score, and Willie Burke took an
attempt by Mark Herrick off the goal line with goalkeeper Seamus Kelly
beaten. But these incidents came in the second half after Cork had
reverted to a more regular formation.
“Second half we did one or two things. I made the change, took
Patsy Freyne off and put John Caulfield up front, and we did look
much better second half,” said Mountfield.
The goal was the result of a sustained bout of Cork pressure. Caulfield
hooked a throw from Neal Horgan into the penalty area, Trevor Crolly
took the ball away from Morley, then lost it to Kelvin Flanagan’s
challenge and Herrick volleyed it home from 16 yards.
That goal came after 65 minutes, and within another five Pats’
cause was rendered much more difficult after Stephen McGuinness was
sent off for a second yellow card.  McGuinness may have been rather harshly treated for the first booking,
but he could have no real complaints for he conceded too many frees.
His dismissal was a huge source of disappointment to manager Dolan,
however, because he revealed the club had received an official pre
season warning from the authorities about McGuinness. Dolan was, not
surprisingly, fearful that his reputation might compromise his season.
“I was afraid it might only be a matter of time with Stephen
McGuinness before he was going to be sent off,” said Dolan.
“I had an official comment made to me before the start of the
season about Stephen McGuinness and it is unfortunate that he is a
marked man.
“He didn’t help himself today but it’s not right.
There should be a clean break from one season to the next and people
should not have preconceived ideas about players.
“But I’m not complaining about the sending off because
I think he deserved to go, and that made it very, very difficult for
us.”
Cork deserved their win but they are capable of much better than this.
Under the circumstances, two of their new boys, full backs Neal Horgan
and Damian Delaney, played extremely well, much better than some of
their established team mates.
CORK CITY; Mooney; Horgan, Daly, Napier, Delaney; OŽBrien, Flanagan,
Herrick, Cahill; Freyne, Morley. Subs: Caulfield for Freyne 36 mins;
Moore for OŽBrien 90. SCORER: Herrick (65).
ST PATS; Kelly; Croly, S. McGuinness, Foley, Burke; Byrne, Harte,
Lynch, Russell, Garratt; Harris. Subs; Hallows and R. McGuinness for
Byrne and Lynch 56 mins; Drew for Garratt 83.
Referee; Mr. D. OŽHanlon (Carrick-on-Suir).
by Bill George, The Examiner
Red-card:
Stephen
McGuinness (St. Pat's, 70mins, second bookable offence)
Match
Picture: Brendan Moran / Sportsfile
More
Match Pictures: click
here
More
Match Reports:
|
